Shelley's Adonais may be viewed as a meditation on the meaning of death by
way of theorising on its consequences. Firstly the idea that death is the equivalent of extinction is
examined and this theory having proved untenable, various possibilities are
examined out of which a resolution is concluded. Elements of these meditations
are also to be found in Keats' works.

The proposition that death
is the equivalent to extinction is examined in the first section of Adonais,
a piece permeated with frigid imagery. The head of the deceased is bound with
‘frost’, his heart is ‘cold’, his lips ‘icy’ and his cheek ‘frozen’ suggesting
the permanent cessation of life. The water imagery in ‘dew’, ‘Iiquid’ and
‘vapour’ suggest weeping for the loss of life, an image which culminates in ‘She
faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain’. The two images combine in the
'frozen tears’, the substitute for pearls in the anadem, which suggest the
immutability of death coupled with the irrevocability of loss.

The death of Adonais is
paralleled with the death of nature. We read that ‘Lost Echo sits amid the
voiceless mountains’ and the personification of Morning fails to arrive at her
appointed station to animate the day. Spring casts 'Her kindling buds, as if she
Autumn were’. The legendary Adonis was the god of nature and consequently the
landscape dies with him. Shelley makes Adonais the proprietor of nature
expressing his poetic descriptions as ‘All he had loved and moulded into
thought’. Shelley adroitly links Adonais to the natural world by making the
imagery apply equally to Adonais and to the dying flora as for example:

‘The bloom, whose petals nipt before they blew
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste.

Also the ‘broken lily’ can apply ambivalently either to a natural flower or to the deceased.

The irrevocability of death is reinforced with the confident and arrogant personification of
Death who ‘laughs at our despair’, is depicted as ‘The eternal Hunger’ and whose
justification is ‘the law of change’. Under this authority ‘suns perished,
others sunk extinct in their refulgent prime’. [Italics added]

However the impression of
permanence is subverted by comments subtly secreted in the text. Milton, 'The
third amongst the sons of light', going ‘unterrified into the gulf of death’
expresses an expectation of future hope. We read that ‘his clear Sprite/ Yet
reigns o'er earth’ giving an indication of immortality. Also Adonais ‘lies,
as if in dewy sleep’ [Italics added] and one of the Dreams cannot be
convinced that Adonais is dead, mistaking her own tear for his. This keeps open
the promise of an awakening which is to be explored in the second movement.

Keats also uses the imagery
of frigidity to portray the perpetuity of death. The opening of The Eve of St
Agnes abounds with frigid imagery which prevails over the creatures'
protective coverings of feathers and wool. The overbearing cold is linked to
‘the sculptured dead’ the effigies which ‘seem to freeze’ and are 'Emprisoned’
in ‘icy hoods and mails’. ‘Sculptured’ and 'freeze’ convey not only an image of
cold but of permanence and tangibility which defeats the fond aspirations for
their salvation of the Beadsman whose very breath is ‘frosted’. The triple image
of cold, immovability and tangibility is established early in the text for later
use. The awakening Madeline perceiving the palpable Porphyro as ‘pallid, chill
and drear’ is constrained to think in terms of mortality in exclaiming ‘For if
thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go.’ Similarly the chilly atmosphere
surrounding the statuesque Porter, in ‘uneasy sprawl', and the immutable arras
‘rich with horsemen, hawk and hound’ reinforces the morbidity of the mansion
from which the lovers are escaping but where Angela and the Beadsman are doomed.

The continuation of Adonais isShelley's meditation on the meaning of death: he asks
‘Whence are we, and what are we?’. This movement depicts the regeneration of
life from which the eponymous character is excluded. Species of fauna ‘Like
unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake’ and birds locate ‘mossy’
building materials from the enlivened ‘field and brere’ as is appropriate to
Adonis the god of rebirth. To a partial extent Adonais takes part in this
renaissance as ‘The leprous corpse ... /Exhales itself in flowers’ suggesting
the idea that his being has been sublimed into the spirit of the universe
although Shelley reserves the poignancy of this revelation until the finale with
the explicit ‘He is made one with nature’ However we read that 'He willawake no more’ [Textual italics], the ‘He’ person being Keats' life
self inasmuch as the part of Keats which has gone is the bereaved's perception
of him: ‘all that we loved of him should be .... as if it had not been’. The
conception of mourning being linked to nature is reinforced by the coincidence
of ‘skies are blue, and fields are green’ with the concepts of ‘woe’ and
‘sorrow’.

For the dead person, the
corpse turned into flowers is a triumph as it can ‘mock the merry worm that
wakes beneath’. The irony of the deceased's gain and the mourners' loss is
demonstrated in the demeanour of the poet himself as he intrudes into the
central portion of his own work. The living poet is a ‘frail Form’ 'Girt round
with weakness’ whose life is tormented by his own thoughts. The imagery of death
as in ‘last cloud of an expiring storm’ intimates the paradox that the dead
continue to exist but the living maintain an aura of death.

In the midst of this debate
we collect clues interspersed in the text as to the final resolution of the
meditation. The ‘flowers of gentle breath’ inspired by the late Adonais, the
anemones of the mythical Adonis are star shaped blooms, ‘incarnations of the
stars’. The immutability of ‘immortal stars’ mentioned alongside ‘a godlike mind
soars forth’ prepares the reader for the resolution of the problem when Adonais
is transmuted to a star in the denouement.

In Ode to a Nightingale,
Keats explores the paradoxes of death and its function as the consummation of
life's endeavours. Keats described in his letter to Bailey (22/11/1817) that his
‘favourite speculation’ was ‘that we shall enjoy ourselves here after by having
what we call happiness on Earth repeated in a finer tone’. This explains the
poet's dissatisfaction at being ‘too happy in thine happiness’; he is unable in
this life to experience ‘a Life of Sensations rather than Thoughts’. His earthly
sensations are expressed as ‘a drowsy numbness pains/ My sense, as though of
hemlock I had drunk’. Having proposed and rejected ‘a draught of vintage’ the
symbol of earthly delectation and indeed found ‘the viewless wings of Poesy’
unsatisfactory because he ‘cannot see what flowers are at my feet’, the poet
contemplates the idea of death: he is ‘half in love with easeful
Death’. [Italics added]. The line ‘called him soft names in many a mused rhyme’
calls to mind Keats' early work Can Death Be Sleep, When Life Is But A Dream
which proposes that ‘future doom .... is but to awake’. The speculation
continues with ‘Now more than ever it seems rich to die’ [Italics added]
although the reservation ‘with no pain’ carries a suspicion of trepidation. The
climax of the cogitation occurs when the poet realises that upon death he would
‘have ears in vain’ and he is brought down to earth (figuratively and literally)
in ‘To thy high requiem become a sod’.

Keats reserves the resolution of the conflict for the finale although we may read a preview of the
revelation in The Eve of St Agnes. The lovers may be seen as a paradigm
of earthly existence. The comestibles of the midnight feast although elaborately
described as delectable are noticeably lacking in nutritive qualities and
therefore lack fulfilment. Madeline is dissatisfied with the visible incarnation
of her lover and Porphyro being an alien in the stronghold seeks refuge in
another world. Their leaving the mansion represents their death. As they depart
‘away into the storm’ ‘like phantoms’ they are ‘beset with fears’ yet
paradoxically they leave behind them the world of death. Their enterprise is
sustained by Porphyro's vision ‘I have a home for thee’ [Italics added]
and it is this ‘home’ in another life which is their quest.

The nightingale's immortality is conferred on it by reason of its completeness in its worldly
existence. Like Urania it is ‘chained to time and cannot thence depart’ and,
like the figures on the Grecian urn, by its immutability it has attained
fulfilment by embodying the beauty/truth ethos. Mankind, personified by the
emperor/clown characterisation, receives an intimation of truth and beauty from
the ‘light winged Dryad’, an ethereal being which provides an expectation that
man progresses towards immortality. Again the key word is ‘home’ which signifies
the expectation of a future abode to be contrasted with the mundane ‘corn’ which
is ‘alien’. The name of the lachrymose Old Testament character punningly serves
as a personification of ruth and represents all those who cannot accept the
earth as ‘home’. The bell acts as a summoner which leads the poet to his inner
‘sole self’ and is simultaneously a funeral dirge. The bell's ‘toll’ punningly
represents the price paid for the use of a highway, a safe passage to a better
place. The duality of the bell's purpose indicates that death is not finality
but the goal of life. This sentiment is illustrated less emotionally but more
succinctly in Why Did I Laugh Tonight?:

‘Yet could I on this very midnight cease,
And the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds.
Verse, Fame and Beauty are intense indeed,
But Death intenser -­- Death is Life's high meed.’

In the conclusion of Adonais, Shelley concurs with Keats' verdict that ‘life is but a dream’ as
Adonais has ‘awakened from the dream of life’ but goes further, detailing the
prerequisites for fulfilment in the hereafter. ‘Dust to the dust’ is not merely
an echo of the Christian funeral service which refers to the destiny of human
remains but signifies a hell of non‑existence to which ‘the nameless worm’ and
like are consigned as there is nothing in their earthly life to fulfil in the
next. The ‘pure spirit, that is Adonais and those of poetic vision, ‘flow/ Back
to the burning fountain whence it came’. The imagery of flame denotes that this
privilege is reserved for those of a fiery disposition such as Chatterton,
Sidney and Lucan who have gained immortality by way of their ‘transmitted
effluence’ and ‘cannot die/ So long as fire outlives the parent spark.’

Shelley provides evidence for his proposition in the fire imagery of the pyramid
tomb of Gaiuis Cestius who, as Tribune of the Plebs, was perceived by Shelley to be a protector of the
masses and therefore exalted in his estimation. Cestius being one of those ‘Who
waged contention with their time's decay’ has justified his earthly existence
and become one ‘that cannot fade away.’ A hint of the Pythagorean doctrine of
the transmutation of souls may be found in a pun on ‘sublime’ which ostensibly
refers to the ethereal aspect of the pyramid but which can also refer to the
chemical process of evaporation of delicate matter from baser material.

Further evidence of the spirit's journey beyond the tomb may be discovered
in To William Shelley:

‘Here its ashes find a tomb
But beneath this pyramid
Thou art not .......’

The particulars of post mortal existence are however unavailable to us while we remain in our mundane
existence:

‘Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity’

The light and glass imagery denote that in life we see the
‘white radiance of Eternity’ yet are prevented
from experiencing its full effect because of the distorting effect of the
‘many-coloured glass’. We can see that there is something there but we cannot
comprehend it. Shelley is indebted for this metaphor to St Paul who expressed a
similar sentiment ‘For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face:
now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’. [I/
Corinthians 13]

Evidence of Shelley's confidence in his expressed philosophy may be obtained
from a Freudian reading of ‘my spirit's bark is driven ... to the tempest
given.’ Shelley's enthusiasm to follow the ‘star’ of Adonais in his ‘spirit's
bark’ expresses what Freudians designate ‘thanatos', the death wish. This
reading becomes credible when we consider that Shelley met his death in a
perilously navigated craft.

It seems that neither poet
deems worthy of consideration the conventional Christian doctrine of death being
a ‘knell which summons thee to Heaven or to Hell’ yet both repudiate the notion
of death being finality. The concept of extinction after death is examined only
that it might be refuted. Keats and Shelley examine the ramifications of the
meaning of death and each without detailing particulars concludes that it leads
to a ‘home’ or an ‘abode where the Eternal are’.